Noted: Gertrude Stein

From Wars I Have Seen (1945):

The thing that is most interesting about government servants is that they believe what they are supposed to believe, they really do believe what they are supposed to believe, which has a great deal to do with wars and wars being what they are. It really has.

I once asked some one who should know why public servants in the army in every branch of government service did not seem to have the kind of judgment that the man in the street any man or any woman has about what is happening. Oh he answered the reason is simple, they are specialists, and to a specialist his specialty is the whole of everything and if his specialty is in good order and it generally is then everything must be succeeding. (pp. 52-53)